We need new Bhoys

NEIL LENNON claims that his squad needs an injection of fresh blood after selling £20million worth of talent.

PUBLISHED: PUBLISHED: 00:01, Mon, Dec 30, 2013

DIVIDED: Neil Lennon is quick to praise his team, but also wants to revitalise [PA]

But the Celtic boss was also quick to praise his team after they recorded a sixth consecutive clean sheet in their 1-0 victory at Inverness yesterday.

He said: “This team is very much a work in progress but I am delighted about where we are and the clean sheets we are keeping.

“It’s also quite an achievement scoring in every league game this year because that shows we go out and try to be forward thinking.

“On the back of two very good years for the club we have sold £20million worth of players and we are not in a position to spend that sum to replace them.

“But we are building a new team and we want an injection of freshness into the squad in January because it’s a bit thin and, hopefully we can make it better for 2014. I can’t say how close we are to bringing players in, but I would hope to really start the process in the next week or so, although we’re nowhere near anything concrete yet.

“But we’re working very hard and we’re going to come out of January stronger because I think we need to.

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“The introduction of Virgil van Dijk has made us better defensively and Kris Commons is huge for us, as he was last year.

“He is maturing and he is at the peak of his career. He showed real quality and scored a great goal.

“But all the players deserve a lot of credit. There are times when they don’t get the plaudits they deserve because I think sometimes people just expect us to turn up and roll over teams and it’s never as easy as that.

“But sooner or later we are going to give another team a bit of a beating and I think the players are hungry for that.”

Inverness manager John Hughes expressed disappointment at conceding a third-minute goal, but also lavished praise on his players.

He said: “They put in so much effort and gave so much in terms of our passing and ball retention, which was very good.